But the conspiracy theorists think they know better.
"They still lift up small pieces of the day and declare them to be suspicious, from unidentified individuals mentioned in court filings to people later revealed to be exactly who they appeared to be. The idea isn’t to inform but to mislead and to distract," Bump explained. "The idea is to distance Trump from the violence by suggesting that it had some non-obvious catalyst, like trying to argue that it was the metal used in the mooring tower that caused the Hindenburg to explode and not the combination of location and hydrogen."
WATCH: Trump suggests FBI staged Jan. 6 false flag attack
On Tucker Carlson's Fox show, for example, it was suggested the House Select Committee is intentionally evading investigating the bomber. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) asked why they're not asking for the phone records of the pipe bomber, who is still unknown. It's very difficult to subpoena phone records from someone if you don't know who they are.
Candace Owens joined in on the conspiracy, saying that there were "stills" of "those individuals," as if there was more than one person involved, which the surveillance videos don't support.
Owens also said that Carlson and podcaster Joe Rogan proved that the FBI was part of the group encouraging violence on Jan. 6. It's not true and they've presented no evidence to prove the lie.
Trump jumped on the opportunity to make it about anyone other than his people.
“This pipe bomber or bomber — who knows if it was a pipe, who knows what it was — they never found him?” Trump said. “I’ve seen pictures of them, and very clear pictures. And you know that they do have cameras — not just a camera, they have many cameras on every corner. And I would imagine they probably know who he was, and I guarantee he wasn’t one of the people that were at that protest for the right reason.”
“Why aren’t they finding this pipe bomber and how come other people haven’t been revealed?” he also asked. “Because I think [there] were more than just — let’s call them MAGA people. … You have BLM and you had Antifa people, I had very little doubt about that, and they were antagonizing and they were agitating.”
It's a lie that the FBI has only released a few photos. They've released many photos along with videos following the bomber around the area and a video map showing their route. It also looked exactly like it was made with a pipe.
"The tactic being used here is to suggest that the lack of an arrest is evidence that the FBI doesn’t want the individual to be found, or, more nefariously, that it knows who he is because the Bureau was somehow involved in the incident," wrote Bump. "Greene and Owens appear to be arguing that it’s suspicious in particular because so many other suspects from the Capitol riot have already been rolled up thanks to the government’s ability to track their movements."
It's a clueless argument as there were thousands of people at the attack and only 700 have been arrested. The ones who have been identified are those whose faces were largely uncovered, bragged about it online or had someone turn them in. The bomber covered their face and body, leaving investigators to focus on his shoes. To make matters worse, none of these people care about the safety or security of the area and their interest in finding the bomber would be believable if they promoted it on their shows several times in the past year.
"What’s almost certainly going to happen is that this individual will be arrested and this crew will move on to some other claim centered on some other contrived question. That’s how it has worked all along. And that’s why none of their claims should be taken at face value," Bump closed.
January 5 Pipe Bomb Investigation: Route and Video of Suspect
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